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6.24.2010

Blogiversary!

It's so hard for me to believe that I have been blogging for a whole year now! A huge thanks to all of my patient, forgiving, nonjudgmental readers -- you guys are the best! I really do appreciate your sticking with me through all of my messy sometimes crazy furniture makeovers, design attempts, and penny-pinching shopping adventures. Y'all are very much appreciated!

For Blogiversary Day fun, I thought I'd repost my very first blog post -- enjoy!

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{ I am all about saving money. I believe that a little ingenuity, research, and elbow grease will go a long way. Why buy new when you can repurpose or spruce up what you have? Case in point: my very first DIY project as a newlywed, recovering some hand-me-down dining room chairs.

My wonderful husband and I had barely returned from our honeymoon and moved into our new house when he announced that he had invited a group of his friends over for dinner the following night. (This may or may not have resulted in our first argument as a married couple!) After panicking first and then assessing the situation - a house full of hand-me-down furniture and almost no money in the budget for anything new - I got to work.

We were given a set of dining chairs as a gift from an old neighbor. Very sweet and much appreciated, but not my style and a little shabby:

I had seen great upholstered dining chairs with a similar camel back like this one from Restoration Hardware:

and I wondered if by some miracle I could transform our dining chairs into something similar in the next 24 hours. A quick trip to the fabric store and $18 later ($3/yd. upholstery fabric!) I dove in. I don't think at that point I had ever really sewn, but my mom had given me a sewing machine and shown me the basics of operating it. I definitely had never recovered furniture before, but how hard could it be?

I basically ended up sewing a tight slipcover for the chair backs and then pulling the fabric under the frame and stapling it tight. For the seats I just cut a square larger than the seat, pulled it under the frame and stapled. Definitely not a professional job, but for $18 plus some staples, I felt like the chairs were much more presentable.

Never mind that there were no curtains and absolutely nothing hanging on the walls yet!

Hi Britt! I am new to your blog (I think I made my way here through Layla via Young House Love?) Anyway, you are so creative and inspiring!! I would love to know more details about this project...you must be SUPER speedy with the sewing machine to get that done in 24 hours! I have recovered chair seats before, so I basically understand the concept, but what do you do in the area where you can't pull it under like near the chair legs? Just fold it and pull tight?

@charlotteannetteThanks! I am pretty speedy, but not always very neat :) That is pretty much what I did - tuck under, pull tight, and staple as close to the area as possible. It definitely wasn't a perfect upholstery job, but it lasted for a couple of years. Hope that answers your questions! Thanks for stopping by!~Britt